A Victorian bone-shaker - their riders never legally got to use the Stray. Photograph Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS.

Cycling is to be allowed for the first time on Harrogate's Stray, that lovely area of grassland and trees which sweeps in a curve round the town centre.

Public support has gradually won the day against fears that the quiet of the open space would be damaged along with the peace-of-mind of walkers, many from Harrogate's retired population.

The ban on cycling, which goes back to the first appearance of two-wheelers in the 19th century spa, is being lifted as gently as anyone familiar with the town might expect. First approved by the district council in 2009, but stuck in legal negotiations since then, a small number of routes will connect with existing cycleways on the perimeter.

Fancy a spin on the Stray? Visitors to next year's Great Yorkshire Show in Harrogate will have the chance. Photograph: Christopher Thomond

As anywhere, success will depend on considerate pedalling and walking, but the two go happily together on paths which lead out into the countryside from the famous Valley Gardens. The local biking group Wheel Easy! ('for people who don't wear Lycra – and some who do') welcomed the decision and repeated its belief that the change would do nothing to alter the park's character and charm.

The Stray Defence Association remains unhappy, after fighting a long but losing battle against peaceful cyclists' demonstrations and more mischievous behaviour, such as the change of No Cycling notices to Go Cycling, as long ago as 2006. Its spokesman expressed fears about two-wheel popularity turning part of the land into a "huge cycle track" and said:

Land is being whittled away, changing the nature of the Stray, which belongs to the people of Harrogate.

Work on widening a small number of footpaths, reckoned by Wheel Easy to involve less than one percent of the Stray, will take place over the next ten weeks. By one of those geographical and historical processes which keep the Wars of the Roses alive and well, the land belongs to the Duchy of Lancaster, whose officials under the Chancellor Lord Strathclyde and his Labour predecessor Baroness Royall have also been involved in the long negotiations.

Previous controversy on the Stray has included its use for the Great Yorkshire Show in the past, and briefly as an airfield.